Why should manufacturers be on the Internet? Simple. That’s where potential customers are looking for them. Even though manufacturers may not put a lot of emphasis on marketing through the Internet, the truth is RV consumers have discovered the Internet as a resource and are using the Internet to shop for their next RV purchase. At RV America On Line®, we get a lot of e-mail from customers asking where to find the web sites of Jayco, Newmar, Thor and others. They express disappointment when we have to tell them these companies do not have web sites.

The most often accessed directory on RV America is our RV manufacturers directory page. From January 1 through May 31, 1997, over 20,000 visitors to RV America came looking for RV manufacturers. During that time, SMC Corporation received more than 18,000 visits and hundreds of requests for information on where to find their area dealer. A lot of these leads turned into sales.

RV manufacturers need to be on the Internet — period. If for no other reason, manufacturers should be on the Internet to support their dealers. When a manufacturer is not on the Internet, it places the burden of providing product information on the dealer resulting in an enormous duplication of effort. To draw a parallel, it’s as if RV manufacturers expected dealers to print their brochures and distribute them to customers. Obviously that doesn’t work. And it doesn’t work for manufacturers to expect dealers to foot the bill for this new marketing opportunity.

Another good reason why manufacturers should provide the information is because it allows for a consistent presentation of product information — some dealers do better than others in presenting a particular manufacturer’s product line up. And while the Internet is relatively inexpensive when compared to other marketing means, dealers have to be conservative in what they can afford to put on their web sites.

The message to RV manufacturers is clear — the Internet is real and potential customers are using it to help them make buying decisions. There’s little doubt that eventually all RV manufacturers will have a web site, and those that act sooner will have a significant advantage over those that act later.

A word of caution, however. Building a web site is more than just finding someone to take your brochures and convert them to HTML, the language of the Internet, then putting the site up on a local Internet service provider’s server and waiting for visitors to find you.

That approach makes as much sense for you as buying a bunch of components and a chassis then hire a couple of people off the street and tell them to piece the stuff together and make a motorhome.

Go to a provider that’s focused on your industry, understands a little about your business and has a sensitivity to who your customer is.

Just as you need expert design engineers to create a blueprint for an RV so do you need a plan designed by experts to build a web site. And the first step is deciding what you want to accomplish with your web site.

Obviously, your web site can have a variety of functions such as providing information about your products and services, information about your company and it’s heritage, and if a publicly trade company, information for investors.

Paramount among the choices, however, must be to provide information about your products to those seeking that information. The name of the game in the Internet is information, information, information.

And since RV manufacturers normally do not sell their products to consumers directly, the way that information is presented ideally would be to augment the information for those that do sell your product — RV dealers.

This is where you can make some serious mistakes if you don’t have a clear vision of what your web site should be.

Too often companies decide that getting "hits" is the most important function of their site, and for manufacturers this may not be what you are really after. There are a lot of ways to increase hits on your web site – listing your site with as many Internet search engines and directories as possible. This could be as many as 500 or more. Another way to increase hits is to use your Internet address in all of your advertising and promotion materials, including putting your web address and e-mail address on everyone’s business cards, letter heads and brochures. These are excellent ways to increase traffic on your web site. Continued